


Nemeses

by orphan_account



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man (Tom Holland Movies)
Genre: Aged-Up Character(s), Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Crack, Crack Treated Seriously, M/M, Post-Avengers: Age of Ultron (Movie), Songfic, Villain Peter Parker, ish
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-08-06
Updated: 2019-08-19
Packaged: 2020-08-10 05:03:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 10,528
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20129797
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: Initially, Tony had thought it was adorable: a spider-themed villain harrying the citizens of Queens. What’s not fun about that? He finds himself oddly fascinated with the so-called Spider-Man. But when he finds and confronts Peter Parker, things don't exactly go to plan.





	1. Chapter 1

Could it be that you need me  
To keep you out, to run you faster?  
Promise me you'll let me be  
The one, the worst of all your enemies.  
Pretending you're a friend to me.  
Say that we'll be nemeses.

_-Nemeses, Jonathan Coulton_

Initially, Tony had thought it was adorable: a spider-themed villain harrying the citizens of Queens. What’s not fun about that? It would have been one thing if he had been doing any serious damage, but in the six months since the newspapers and local news stations had been reporting on his exploits, it had been mostly burglaries, vandalism and the occasional bit of hacking. The Queens City Council delegation members had all of their financial data exposed. At least three of them had been forced to resign in shame when it was discovered they were taking bribes in exchange for approving profitable zoning changes.

Honestly, it was beneath Tony’s attention. He had bigger fish to deal with. But there was still something about this spider guy that captured his interest. Maybe it was the way he moved with such fluid grace swinging from building to building in videos where he was on the run from police. Maybe it was the fact that he seemed to sling bon mots around just as easily as he did webs, or the way he left smart-ass notes behind to mark his work. Maybe it was the way his ass looked in those leggings. _Who could say_, is the thing. 

However, in a completely out-of-character move for him, Tony decided to leave it alone. He had the Avengers – slightly worse for wear after their run-in with Ultron – to worry about. He would leave the Spider-Man to the cops and the B-team. Surely the Devil of Hells Kitchen would get tired of this punk soon enough and get rid of him. Right?

That strategy worked out fine until a guy showed up on Atlantic Avenue beaten to a bloody pulp with a handy little note from Spider-Man slung around his neck. Then, Tony decided, it was time to take the guy in. Enough was enough. Anyone willing to remove the majority of another person’s teeth with their fist was worthy of a beat down from Iron Man, especially as this particular asshole was operating right in Tony’s own backyard.

It had taken less than 15 minutes for Jarvis to run through available city security footage and come up with the hoodlum’s real name. Peter Parker is not very careful about his secret identity, despite his crime spree. Also, it turns out he’s in high school. Which makes Tony feel a whole lot of ways.

But it just means that intervention is all the more necessary. The kid is young. There’s still time for him to turn his life around. So Tony decides to go talk to him. He’ll put the fear of God into him and hope that he’ll see the error of his ways.

He’s suffering through a piece of walnut date loaf, making small talk with Parker’s surprisingly young and attractive aunt, when the kid finally barges into the apartment with an anxious sort of energy. 

“Hey May, there’s this crazy car parked outside …”

His sentence trails off when he notices Tony on the couch, eyes going saucer wide as Tony flashes him a grin and winks from behind yellow-lensed smart glasses. 

Peter Parker, in the flesh, is just as adorable as he is in his spider persona. Tony is a little shocked because this didn’t quite come through in the grainy security footage, or in his yearbook photo, where he’d just looked awkward and nerdy. His brown hair is fluffy like a duckling, and his eyes are dewy and doe-like, and he just looks so goddamn _innocent _standing there in his faded hoody and novelty t-shirt that for a second Tony thinks he’s made a mistake.

“Oh, Mr. Parker,” Tony greets.

“Hey, what-what are you doing … I-I’m Peter,” the kid says, fumbling at his words.

“Tony,” he responds, with a smirk.

The nervous energy gets dialed up to 100, and the kid’s face looks stricken. _That’s right, Parker, _Tony thinks. _Somebody has been a naughty boy._

Tony lays out the story for Parker that he already told Aunt Hottie. Finalist for a grant, yada yada yada. Then he asks for five minutes alone with the kid and maneuvers him by the shoulders down the hallway to what must be his room judging by the dirty laundry on the floor and the concert posters on the walls.

Then he pushes Parker into the room and flips the lock behind them. His eyes are drawn to the Apple 1 computer on his desk. 

“Ooh, retro tech, huh?” Tony asks, going over to poke around at the keyboard. “Thrift store? Salvation Army?” 

He pulls out a few of the desk drawers and, _jackpot. _The laptop in the bottom drawer is home-built for sure. But if Tony isn’t mistaken it’s got more than enough processing power to do the hacking jobs the Spider-Man has laid claim too, and the parts to build it are a whole lot more expensive than a kid like this could afford. 

“The, uh, garbage, actually,” Parker responds.

“You’re a dumpster diver?” Tony asks incredulously, holding up the laptop like exhibit A.

“It’s amazing the things people just throw away,” Parker says, crossing his arms. His face has taken on a mulish quality Tony wouldn’t have guessed he was capable of. “Anyway, look, I definitely didn’t apply for your grant so …”

“Uh-uh,” Tony interrupts. “Me first. A quick question of the rhetorical variety.”

He holds out his phone, activating the projection function and presses play on a video from a recent news broadcast – the Spider-Man literally ripping an ATM out of its slot on a street corner and carrying it away. No muss, no fuss.

“That’s you, right?” Tony asks.

Parker inhales sharply. Criminals really should have better poker faces.

“Um, no?” he says. “What … What do you mean?”

“Yeah,” Tony says. “Look at you go. Those things weigh a ton. Can’t be easy.”

“That’s all on YouTube though, right?” Parker says, sinking into a blustery tone, and snatching the laptop from Tony’s hand to stuff it back into his desk. “That’s where you found that? Because you know that’s all fake. It’s done a computer. It’s like that video …” 

“Oh yeah, you mean like the UFOs over Phoenix?”

“Exactly.”

But Tony’s already spotted his ringer. He picks up a plastic light saber from against the wall and pokes at the door to the attic crawl space. Red fabric tumbles down. Parker’s quick to grab it, throw it behind his back.

“What have we here?” Tony asks. He doesn’t have to drag this whole thing out like this, but he’s enjoying himself, watching the kid squirm a little.

“Uh, that’s uh …” Parker sputters, failing to come up with anything.

“So you’re the spiderling,” Tony says, getting the name wrong just to take him down a peg or two. “Spider boy? Spider-themed criminal. Itsy bitsy something or other?”

“It’s Spider … Spider-Man,” Parker says, face flushing, scowl forming on his face.

“Not in that onesie you’re not,” Tony says.

“It’s not a onesie,” Parker insists.

Tony’s only response is to roll his eyes. 

“I can’t believe this,” Parker says. “I was actually having a really great day today, Mr. Stark. Didn’t miss my train, this perfectly good DVD player was just sitting there for the taking, and Algebra test? Nailed it.”

“So who else is in on it?” Tony asks. After all, he needs to know if the kid has accomplices.

“Nobody,” Parker says, lowering his eyes and scuffing his sneaker across the floor.

“Not even your unusually attractive aunt?” Tony prods.

He pushes some laundry off a chair and sits to better rifle through the bundle of red cloth. The kid’s costume, for what it’s worth, which ain’t much.

“No,” Parker says. “No, no, no. If she knew she would freak out. And when she freaks out, I freak out …” 

“You know what I think is really cool? This webbing,” Tony says, pulling out a silver cylinder that must contain the stuff the kid is using to swing all over the city. “The tensile strength is off the charts. Who manufactured that?” 

“I did,” Parker says with a shrug.

He says it like it’s nothing, but it’s really an ingenious little invention. Tony slips the cylinder into his pocket carefully for further examination. Maybe this won’t be a simple straighten up and fly right sort of chat. Maybe the kid is also an asset to be cultivated. 

“And the climbing the walls?” he asks. “How you doing that? Adhesive gloves?”

“It’s a long story,” Parker says.

“Not gonna share with the class?”

“I don’t really think so, Mr. Stark,” Parker says, sprawling out on his bed and glancing up at Tony insolently.

He started out nervous, but Tony can tell now that the kid has some guts.

“Kid, you are in dire need of an upgrade,” Tony says, leaning forward, elbows on knees to meet Parker’s eyes. “Systemic. Top to bottom. 100-point restoration. 180-degree revolution. That’s why I’m here.”

“I don’t know what you …”

“Why are you doing this? Tony asks. “I gotta know. What’s your MO? I’ve been trying, and I can’t understand it.”

Something flashes in Parker’s eyes, and Tony can’t suppress his smile. Oh, here it comes. He’s gonna monologue. They can never resist. Tony loves a good villain monologue. It’s been a while since he’s been able to do this.

“Because,” Parker says. “Because I’ve been me my whole life, and I’ve had these powers six months. And maybe I should want to play football, or lift weights, or be a freaking super hero, but having power doesn’t actually make you a different person, is the thing. I want the same things I always wanted, only now I have the ability to make them happen.”

“So you want what?” Tony asks. “Money? YouTube fame? A fancy computer? That’s small potatoes, kid. You need to readjust your vision.”

“My vision is just fine, Mr. Stark,” Parker says. “It’s you who aren’t seeing the full picture.” 

Tony holds his empty hands out to the kid.

“So tell me what I’m missing here, spiderling.” 

“You’re a billionaire,” Parker says, and there’s a bite to his voice now. “You don’t get what it’s like. Your life flows smoothly, so you think that everything’s working the way it should, but it doesn’t. My uncle was killed by a guy robbing a convenience store, but the guy only got six months in jail because he was working for somebody who greased the right palms. The system is broken, Mr. Stark. So if I steal from a bank? Or from the rich assholes who are coming in and driving up rent by 150 percent? That means that Mrs. Flores down the hall can pay her rent for the next month, and the world balances out just that little bit.”

“So you wanna look out for the little guy?” Tony asks. “Pull a Robin Hood. Steal from the rich and give to the poor, that sound about right?”

“Yeah,” Parker says, letting out a sigh of relief. “Yeah, that’s the idea.”

“So what about that guy on Atlantic Avenue you almost put into a coma? How does that balance anything, huh?”

It’s obvious that it’s the wrong thing to say about one second after the words leave Tony’s mouth. The eyes that had been soft and relieved turn hard and angry in an instant.

“How does beating up the registered sex offender who likes to hang out around PS 132 at recess balancing things?” Parker asks, tone hushed but angry. “Really? Like you’ve never given out an ass kicking before?”

Tony purses his lips together as Parker mutters “Hypocrite,” under his breath. He stands and walks over to the bed, motioning to Parker.

“I’m gonna sit here, so you move the leg,” he says.

Reluctantly, the kid obliges, and the springs of the mattress creak as Tony settles himself.

“Look, Parker, I believe you’ve got good intentions, I do,” he says, reaching out to squeeze his shoulder in what he hopes is a comforting manner, and not a creepy one. “But at the end of the day, you’re just a kid, and maybe your judgment isn’t all the way there yet. That’s ok. We can work on that. Together.”

“I’m eighteen,” the kid insists, stubbornly. “And I don’t think I need lessons from you in good judgment Mr. Stark.”

“Right,” Tony says. “Ok, that’s fine.”

He pats the kid on the shoulder one more time, then gets up and heads to the door.

“We can do this one of two ways, kid,” he says, reaching for the door knob. “You can take my generous offer of support and guidance, or we can go talk to Aunt Hottie out there, and maybe that will …”

In a flash, Parker extends his arm, and sends a net of webbing to wrap around Tony’s hand, sticking it to the doorknob.

“Don’t tell Aunt May,” he says, leveling a finger at Tony.

Tony blinks a few times at the sheer audacity.

“Alright, Spider-Man,” he says, voice tinged with annoyance. “Get me out of this.”

“I’m sorry,” Parker says, just a hint of panic shooting through his voice. “Mr. Stark, I’m so sorry. I-I have something for that.”

“Yeah, kid, you fucking better.”

He watches as Parker fumbles around in his desk and eventually pulls out a vial, clear and filled with some kind of blue gas. He approaches Tony with a hand outstretched as though to ward off attack.

“I’m sorry, just let me …” Parker says.

And then he’s uncorking the vial and directing it not to the webbing to dissolve it, but up under Tony’s nose. He has a millisecond to register shock, and then the world goes black. 

*

When Tony floats back into awareness, he’s sprawled out on the floor of his personal lab in Stark Tower, and his back is killing him. He reaches up to rub his face, and finds a sticky note attached to his forehead. He pulls it off, and looks at it, giving his eyes time to refocus. 

There’s a number scrawled in red ink across the top followed by a note below. _Call me, _it says, followed by an amateur sketch of a spider hanging off a string attached to a spiky 7 in the phone number above.

“Friday?” Tony calls out, weakly, pulling himself to his feet. “Can you play back surveillance footage for me? Start with when I entered the building?”

“Sure thing boss,” Friday acknowledges with her slight lilt.

A projection pops up in front of Tony’s face and he watches as he enters the main lobby of Stark Tower under his own steam, trailed by Parker. They board the elevator and make their way to the lab, where Tony sees himself log into a computer station and step aside for Parker. Hologram Tony stands there slack-jawed and practically drooling while Parker downloads files onto a jump drive, eases him down onto the floor for a nap, apparently, and writes his note.

“Fri, I’m gonna need some bloodwork processed, can you warm up the old centrifuge?”

It turns out that the stuff Tony was dosed with is a hybrid between a roofie and truth serum, makes the person who ingests it compliant and suggestible without completely knocking them out. It’s impressive, if a little terrifying. Especially from an 18-year-old. 

And now? Now Tony has a call to make.

“Mr. Parker,” Tony says as soon as the ringing stops. “You know, it’s awfully rude to roofie a guy and then just leave. Whatever happened to a little aftercare?”

“Oh good, Mr. Stark, you got my note,” Parker answers, enthusiastically. His voice is raised to compensate for the sound of whipping wind.

“Are you swinging right now?” Tony asks. “That can’t be safe.” 

“What can I say? I’m a rebel,” Parker says. “So are you, it seems. Spying on SHIELD, Mr. Stark? Somehow, I do not think Nick Fury would take kindly to that.”

“I like to be in the know, so sue me.”

“Oh, no judgment here, sir,” Parker says. “Whoa! You know, I really hate how many people have drones nowadays. Makes it so much harder to get around. New York traffic is crazy, amiright?”

“Can we stop with the word vomit, kid?” Tony asks, cradling his head in one hand. He has a headache forming at his temples, probably coming down from the drugs. “What’s the point you’re trying to make here?” 

“The point? Oh! The point is, Mr. Stark, that you know my secrets, but now I know your secrets too. A lot of them. So I’d like it if we could come to an agreement.” 

“Oh?” Tony asks, unable to keep the testiness out of his tone.

“I’ll keep your secrets if you keep mine,” Parker says. “Seem like a fair trade?”

“You kinda got me over a barrel here, kid.”

“That’s the idea,” Parker agrees. “Oh, and you’re gonna want some aspirin and some Gatorade. Something with electrolytes. The stuff I used can really dehydrate you.”

That, at least, explains the headache.

“Gee, thanks for the heads up.”

“Alright, well, I really gotta go, sir. I got some … Stuff to do. But you’ve got my number. You can always call if you want to chat!”

Tony curses as the line goes dead.

The truth is, it’s probably not as much leverage as the kid thinks it is. It would take him a while to bring Fury back around if he finds out about the bugs Tony put into the SHIELD systems. And it wouldn’t be pleasant if some of the designs that were on his personal system got out into the world. But he could deal with those consequences if he had to.

Does he, though? Have to? He shouldn’t still have a soft spot for the kid after he drugged him. He should be more determined to take him down. Still, he feels disinclined to pursue it, given that tiniest bit of incentive. After all, if Parker doesn’t escalate past what he’s doing, he’s really only in anti-hero territory. Tony doesn’t have to feel obligated to do anything, right? Right? 

OK, so maybe no one is ever going to say that Tony’s moral compass is perfectly aligned, but he puts FRIDAY on monitoring duty and decides on a strategy of just … Wait and see.

*

Tony’s strategy actually works for a few months. There are a couple news stories that ping onto his radar about elevated crime rates in Queens, and a corresponding slow-down in new development in the borough, but nothing too terrible. As far as he can tell, it’s mostly hipsters getting mugged and construction sites getting vandalized. There’s a funny little report about something being added to cement trucks on one site that makes the cement come out all moldable and unstable, like the slime all the kids are fooling around with these days.

“Smart spider,” Tony mutters to himself when he reads that one.

He thinks about what Parker could do if he actually used his smarts for good, and considers a rapprochement, not for the first time. He could offer the kid an internship. He’d known who Tony was, seemed impressed even, at first. Maybe with some active guidance, a mentor, he really could turn things around.

Before he has the chance to make the offer, though, a building blows up in Queens.

FRIDAY alerts him to the explosion with an alarm that blares through the lab at half past one in the morning. Tony isn’t asleep, but he has been in the zone doing suit improvements for going-on 24 hours, so it takes him a few minutes to shake off the funk and get into the suit. 

“Center of the explosion seems to be a location on 21st Street in Queens, boss,” FRIDAY says at the helmet closes over Tony’s head.

“Let’s head over, baby girl,” Tony tells her, as he heads out to the balcony and launches into the air.

He can see the cloud rising from the explosion even from midtown. Technically, it’s only half a building that exploded. The rest hadn’t been completed yet. It’s a high-rise condo development, part of a whole rejuvenation project some businessman named Fisk is working on in the borough.

It’s Parker. Of course it’s Parker. Tony knows before he even reaches the site, cold trickling through his veins at the thought. He’s somehow managed to convince himself, up to this point, that what the kid was doing was just mischief. But the intent behind this is clear. He means business, and he doesn’t care who he hurts in the process.

There’s not even a support beam left standing. It’s all rubble, flames licking up into the sky from the piles of debris. Tony helps the fire fighters put out the worst of the flames, makes sure there’s no one trapped underneath the debris, and then goes in search of the kid. 

The sun is just starting to rise, casting the sky in a pale purple, by the time he catches sight of a red and blue dot sitting on top of a rooftop, legs dangling over the side.

Tony touches down on the roof and then cuts his thrusters, letting the front fold away so he can step out. It’s September, and the morning is so cold that Tony can see the white puffs of his breath as it hits the air. He’s dressed in worn-out jeans and a Metallica t-shirt, and he shivers despite the anger pumping through him, warming his blood.

“What in the hell were you thinking, Parker?” He yells. 

The kid turns to look at him over one shoulder. He’s got his goggles and balaclava off. there’s a scrape unddr his eye, a trickle of blood still running from his nose, and drying sweat plastering his hair to his forehead. He’s facing out, where the roof has a beautiful view of the East River, the sun still hiding behind the New York skyline. 

“Oh, hey, Mr. Stark,” he says. “I guess you saw, then?”

“Your little pyrotechnic show?” Tony asks, stalking towards him. “Yeah, I saw that, underoos. What the fuck was that?”

“Pretty impressive, right?” Parker says. “Guess how I did it? Go on, you’re really gonna like this.”

“I do not care _HOW _you did it, kid. I care about why. Why would you do something like this? You knew. You had to have known that as long as you stayed low to the ground I was gonna let you slide.” 

“Let me slide?” Parker says, incredulity seeping into his tone. “How exactly are you letting me slide here? Because the way I remember it is I drugged you and stole all your personal data. So we’ve got a blackmail situation going on here.”

“Like that was really going to stop me if you weren’t so far below my notice …”

“Below your notice?” Parker shoots to his feet, standing on the building ledge, and towering above Tony with the height advantage that gives him.

“I have been lenient because I thought it was just a cute little phase …”

“Cute little … You are so full of crap.”

“But this is too far,” Tony interrupts. He’s shouting. He’s just so, so angry. “Blowing up a building, Parker? Do you know how dangerous that could be? Did you even care if anybody got hurt?”

“Was anybody hurt?” Parker asks, his voice coming out softer, more vulnerable than before.

“No,” Tony says. “No thanks to you. But what if somebody had died tonight? Different story, right? Because that’s on you. And when you mess up and get yourself hurt, I feel like that’s on me. I don’t need that on my conscience.”

“Because you let me slide?” 

“Yeah, exactly.” 

Parker’s face takes on that increasingly familiar mulish look – brow scrunched, lips pinched, eyes narrowed. He flips down from the ledge and onto the roof, leaning back like the little trick was nothing. Tony fights how impressed he wants to be at the move. 

“Nobody was hurt because I was careful,” Parker says. “I knew the construction crew schedules, when the maintenance guys come, when security does their rounds. I was smart. And it wasn’t an explosion, by the way. It was an implosion. Less risky. A chemical compound to break down the metal supports. Made it myself.”

“And I’m supposed to be impressed by that, am I?” Tony asks. “When one thing goes wrong with your little plot and hundreds of people die? Why would you take a risk like that? You just like to see things go boom?”

Parker stomps toward him until they’re standing toe to toe. They’re almost of a height with Tony out of the suit, and Parker meets his gaze with anger burning in his eyes. Why does Tony lean into the warmth of that fire when he should want to step away?

“You think you know me, but you don’t,” Parker says, harshly. “Do you have any idea what Fisk had to do to get the land for his ‘revitalization’ project? How many people he forced out of their homes? He did the same thing in Hell’s Kitchen, and nobody stopped him. That’s not happening here. Not if I have anything to do with it.”

Cautiously, Tony reaches out, laying a hand on Parker’s shoulder. It feels so fragile beneath his hand, when the kid in front of him can literally lift cars.

“There are other ways, kid,” he says, softly. “I can help with this. We can work within the law.”

Parker’s eyes are already rimmed red from the smoke, and for a second Tony swears he sees tears trembling at the corners, just waiting for an excuse to fall. He doesn’t get to see if they do, however, because Parker whips away, out of his grasp and hops up to crouch on the lip of the roof.

“This isn’t something that can be done your way, Mr. Stark,” he says. “I’ve thought it through, and it just can’t. I’m sorry. You’ve gotta do whatever you’ve gotta do. But I know my path.”

He casts one last look back at Tony, face mostly in shadow with the rising sun at his back. 

“I guess, catch me if you can, Iron Man.”

And then he stands, holds out his arms, and tumbles off the side of the roof, web snagging the corner of a nearby building at the very last second. Tony watches as he swings, feet almost skimming the pavement, before he _thwips _his hand out again, and he’s gone.


	2. Chapter 2

After that night, the spider goes to ground far more effectively than Tony ever thought he could. He doesn’t stop in his vendetta against Fisk, or his general bedevilment of the borough, but he’s always gone far before the dust settles. Probably he’s gone before the explosions (implosions, whatever). There are several more, all in a great big block of property near Forest Hills Park that Fisk has bought up.

He also holds up a bank in Manhattan, like some Bonny and Clyde bullshit, and apparently picks up whatever Fisk has been squirreling away in a series of safety deposit boxes, plus who knows what else. But when Tony has FRIDAY mine the security footage, there’s a weird blip in the recording, and then Parker disappears like magic. So he’s found a way to interfere with security footage.

Eventually, it all gets to be too much, and Tony reluctantly goes back to Peter’s apartment. He’s determined to take the kid in quietly, but take him in nonetheless. If he keeps up like this someone is going to get hurt. It was just pure dumb luck it didn’t happen the first few times.

May Parker looks shocked when she opens the door to him, but not upset. She ushers him into her kitchen, offers him weirdly gelatinous cranberry bran muffins that cling to the roof of Tony’s mouth, and thanks him very much for the letter of recommendation he apparently wrote for Peter’s college applications. Tony’s very interested to know what he said. 

“Say, where is the little delinquent anyway?” Tony asks. “I’d love to have a word.” 

“I can give you his number if you don’t have it,” May says. “But he won’t be back in town until probably Christmas. Plane tickets are expensive.”

Plane tickets? Oh yes, Peter Parker is a full-time bioengineering student at UC Berkeley now. May is very proud.

“As you should be,” Tony tells her with a pat on the hand. “No, no. You don’t need to call him. I was just in the neighborhood for a meeting and thought I’d drop in.”

When he checks enrollment records, it turns out that Peter is, in fact, enrolled at Berkeley. He’s taking a full load of entirely online courses and getting near-perfect marks. It’s a lot to take on on top of full-time villainy. At first, Tony suspects he’s just hacking the system to give himself good grades. But then things around Queens are eerily peaceful during Berkeley’s finals week, and he thinks again. 

There’s no reason for him to be proud, but he feels a little glow when he looks over the kid’s records. It’s a cover for his aunt, obviously. A good one. But he’s so smart that it he makes it all look easy. And for Tony it’s a sign. A sign that the kid is considering another path, that he could go a different way.

He’s half a bottle of scotch deep one night when he makes the decision to try calling Parker again. It’s lucky, probably, that he gets sent to voicemail. He’d meant to make an appeal to the boy’s better judgment, or maybe give him a lecture. He hadn’t really decided when he’d pressed dial.

“Really kid? Berkeley?” he says after the beep, voice unhelpfully lazy from the scotch. “You could have at least opted for Cal Tech. I feel like you’re just trying to get a rise out of me at this point. If I find out you’re dabbling in the soft sciences, I’m going to stage an intervention.”

He pauses, listening for clues in the nothing on the other end of the line.

“Call me back, Peter,” he finally says. “Please.”

Then he hangs up the phone.

There is no returning phone call, but Tony does walk into his lab in an insomniac daze one night to find a little plush of the Berkeley bear mascot sitting on one of the work stations, dressed in a teeny-tiny red Iron Man t-shirt.

The bear also contains a mini-EMP that gives FRIDAY a wicked hangover and wreaks havoc on a couple of the suits that were close enough to be affected. Tony would probably be disappointed if the kid didn’t try to pull something like that. He ditches the electronics hidden under the t-shirt, but he keeps the bear.

Tony doesn’t have time to consider the implications of the gift, or the reasons he finds it so charming. Lagos happens, and then the accords are barreling towards them like a fucking freight train.

Steve goes completely off the reservation, they end up in a showdown at an airport in Germany, and just like that, in one fell swoop, more than half of Tony’s entire friendship pool doesn’t really qualify anymore.

The whole rotten saga ends with Tony laid out on the frigid floor of a Siberian bunker with a cracked arc reactor while the man he once trusted with his life abandons him for the man who killed Tony’s parents. 

Humbling is far too small a word for the experience. Tony feels like the universe is holding his hand to a proverbial hot oven burner in order to teach him not to play with these sorts of things. Maybe, in a battle full of literal gods and monsters, the soft, squishy human should just … Sit things out.

He doesn’t make an official announcement or anything, but in his head Tony decides that he’s retired. He’s done enough damage, he’s felt enough pain, and now he’s going to focus on the thing that he knows he can do well. He’ll do the science, which is honestly the only thing that hasn’t let him down so far.

It’s late one night, a couple months after, that Tony’s pulled from an all-consuming session reworking Rhodey’s legs braces to operate with more naturally when the entire lab is filled with a blaring alarm.

“What the fuck, Fri?” Tony yells over the high-pitched squawk.

“Boss, there’s an intruder in the penthouse level of the tower.”

“How the … This place is locked down like a fortress.” 

Tony pulls on one of his old gauntlets and races for the elevators. It’s better than if it were one of the lab levels, but there are still plenty of goodies an intruder could get their hands on to cause trouble. When the elevator doors slide open, Tony sweeps the entryway with the gauntlet, but it’s empty and dark. 

There is, however, the sound of someone humming. Cautiously, Tony makes his way into the living room and the attached kitchenette, where a blue-legging clad ass is bobbing in front of the open refrigerator while his intruder sings quietly.

“Baby I don’t need dollar bills to have fun tonight. I love cheap thrills …”

Peter stands, pops open a carton of milk, takes a swig directly from the lip of the carton and then turns to Tony. He’s got his mask and gloves off, and his hair is mussed, strands flying in every direction. There’s a soft sheen of sweat on his forehead that just makes his skin look luminescent in the soft light of the refrigerator, and he’s got a line of milk on his upper lip, which he swipes his tongue out to lick away while Tony stares at him. 

“Hey, Mr. Stark,” Peter says, with a grin and a wink. “You in the mood for a midnight snack, too? I always get peckish after a busy night. Pizza rolls?”

“Hate to disappoint, kid, but I definitely do not keep pizza rolls in the penthouse.”

Tony lowers the gauntlet and crosses his arms.

“I also usually don’t keep little spiders up here.”

Peter’s smile flashes brighter. He opens the freezer and pulls out a bag of microwavable pizza rolls, already opened and half gone. Which means he’s been here before, probably numerous times. To what? Eat Tony’s food?

“I asked Friday to keep them stocked for me,” Peter says with a shrug. “I think she likes me, don’t you Fri?”

“I’m afraid that’s not part of my programming, Peter,” Friday replies calmly.

“Oh, no need to be coy, baby girl,” Peter says, tossing a plate full of the pizza rolls into Tony’s microwave.

“Hey,” Tony interrupts at the nickname. “Step off, spiderling. That’s my AI. Keep your sticky little fingers off.” 

Peter puts his hands up, a picture of innocence. 

“Don’t get upset, I’m sure she still likes you best.”

“You’re damn right she does.”

They stand there at an impasse for a long moment, staring at one another. 

“You hacked my AI,” Tony finally says. “For snacks.”

“Mostly it was just to see if I could,” Peter says, shrugging. “The snacks were a bonus.”

“So why did my alarm go off tonight, if you’ve got Friday wrapped around your little finger?”

The kid leans forward onto the kitchen counter, bracing himself on his elbows.

“Haven’t seen you in a couple months,” he says, voice quiet in the near-dark. “You even missed my big light show last week. Fisk Tower’s nothing but rubble now. I’d braced for a lecture at the very least.”

Tony had heard about that, had considered, briefly, looking for Peter. But that’s not his job anymore. There are other people to take care of such things.

“Figured you were just letting off some steam since Fisk is in jail now. Out of your reach.”

Peter’s lips flatten into a hard, distasteful line.

“Meddling Devils,” he says. “Can he really call himself a hero if he doesn’t respect dibs? That’s how the world devolves into chaos, Mr. Stark.”

“You should probably take that up with him,” Tony replies. “I’m retired now. It’s none of my business.”

“I’m sorry, what?”

The kid is staring at him with his eyebrows knitted together, complexion a little paler than usual. 

“Retired, kid,” Tony says. “No longer in the superhero line of business.” 

“But … You’re Iron Man. Iron Man can’t retire. Don’t be ridiculous.” 

There’s a soft sort of helplessness in his voice that Tony can’t really understand. He steps forward to join Peter at the counter, leaning forward on his elbows, chin in his hands. He studies that face.

“Nobody needs an old man flying around in a tin can pretending to be somebody,” he finally says. “So no more lectures from me, kid. Thought you’d be pleased.”

“You’re not old,” Peter says, stubbornly. “Is this about …”

“It isn’t about anything but facing some hard truths,” Tony interrupts.

He doesn’t want to hear where Peter was going to go with that line of thought. He’s not ready to talk about it yet. Not ready, really, to even think about it. He pulls in a long, shaky breath and stands up, paces away to get some distance. 

He tries hard not to give into the limp that plagues him sometimes. It’s hard to tell whether it’s a psychosomatic thing, or the result of waiting for hours, laid out in the Siberian snow, for someone to answer his emergency transmission. There’s a physical therapist who comes once a week to help, but most of the time Tony just yells at him until he goes away. 

“And I am old, kid,” he says, feeling the truth of it in his joints. “You must’ve hit your head on the way here or something.” 

“Hazard of the job,” Peter says. “I have to calculate my arc of movement while I’m swinging, and sometimes I get distracted.” 

Tony spins on a heel to look at the kid again, consternation making his face flush hot. Peter’s studying Tony appraisingly. He knows something’s not right.

“You what now?” Tony says. “You don’t have something that does that for you?”

“Eh, every time I think about it, I’m in the middle of a bigger project,” he says. “Besides, I heal fast. I can take a few face plants.”

The casualness with which the kid seems to consider his own safety makes Tony irrationally angry. It isn’t his business. Nothing that Peter Parker does is his business anymore. But in the back of his mind, Tony’s already drawing up schematics for a suit that will follow the lithe lines of Peter’s body but provide protection in key areas. Namely, his hard, hard head.

“That actually explains quite a bit,” Tony says.

He walks over to the bar cart in the living room, pours himself a scotch, and downs it in one go. 

Peter’s smile turns rueful.

“You aren’t the first one to say it,” he agrees. “Aren’t going to offer me a drink, too?”

“I don’t give booze to infants,” Tony scoffs.

“I’m 19,” Peter says. “I’ll be 20 in a few months.”

“As I said.” 

There’s a flash of something in Peter’s dark eyes.

“Alright, old man,” he says. “I can tell when I’m not welcome.”

“And here I thought the blaring alarm was a good enough indication of that.”

“That was just to get your attention.”

Tony tilts his head to the side in question, takes a few more steps toward Peter.

“That something you need, Pete?” he asks, voice pitched low. “My attention?” 

For a long, long moment, Peter says nothing. He just stands there with his lips slightly parted and his eyes wide as they bore into Tony’s. His breath is coming quicker now than usual. Then, like a switch is flicked, his jaw snaps closed and firms as he clenches it. 

“I don’t need anything from you, Mr. Stark,” he says. And Tony almost believes it.

There’s something hanging unsaid in the air between them one minute, and then the next, Peter is popping a pizza roll into his mouth, grinning impudently, and running for the door of the balcony.

“I’ll see you around, Mr. Stark,” he calls back from the edge. “Don’t eat my snacks!” 

Tony watches as he tumbles over the railing only to catch himself a second later with a web flipped out to a building across the way. It always looks like it’s an accident, and a small part of Tony suspects Peter does it that way because he knows it gives him a near heart attack every time. 

He turns away from the window and pours himself another drink.

*

He expects the next time he hears from Peter to happen in a similar vein. Tony goes through the motions of wiping his fingerprints off Friday’s coding, but he’s fairly certain it won’t stick if Peter puts his mind to hacking her again.

He continues to spend too much time in the lab, working on Rhodey’s braces, on practical applications for the arc reactor technology, on plans for a flying car at one point. Anything to keep his mind busy. Anything to keep him from dwelling.

And sometimes, late at night, he pulls up plans for something he’s named Project Underoos. The suit isn’t for anyone. It’s a thought experiment he’s doing, trying to come up with a smart fabric that can allow for maximum flexibility while providing needed padding and protection. The spider web design he’s using is purely because it’s aesthetically pleasing.

But there aren’t any more alarm bells ringing in the tower, and as many times as he checks Friday’s programming, it doesn’t look like anyone’s been fiddling around in there. Is it crazy that he feels abandoned because the kid doesn’t try trespassing again? Maybe the solitude really is getting to him.

Tony’s convinced himself that he may just have heard the last of Peter Parker – and maybe that’s a good thing – when he gets a call from Happy saying that Pepper’s gone missing. 

Tony gives himself ten minutes to have a panic attack that feels a little bit more like a heart attack than he’s comfortable with, and then he climbs back into the suit for the first time in nearly six months and gets to work.

A thousand possibilities run through Tony’s mind as he scans the city for traces of Pepper while Friday scans through hours of surveillance footage around her office and apartment. Happy had been the last one to see her, last night when he dropped her home from work. But she’d never called for a ride in this morning, and a cursory search had revealed that her place on the upper East Side has been totally ransacked. 

It could be AIM goons coming for retribution, or a disgruntled former SI employee, or any of a number of low-level baddies who Tony put away and never thought of again. Whoever it is, there’s absolutely no doubt that it’s Tony’s fault in the end. Isn’t it always?

Finally, Friday traces a suspicious vehicle near Pepper’s apartment last night to an abandoned warehouse down by the docks.

The mad scientist set up inside isn’t surprising exactly. But he’s not expecting to find Peter holding a syringe to Pepper’s neck when he busts through one of the skylights.

“Just a minute Mr. Stark,” the kid says, holding up a finger. “This is delicate work, and you definitely don’t want me to slip.” 

“Peter, what the hell is this?” Tony demands, repulsors stuttering as he lands on the concrete floor of the warehouse.

“Tony?!” Pepper cries out from the elevated table where she’s been restrained. Her voice sounds both panicked and slightly exasperated with him which, yeah, that checks out.

“Shhh,” Peter insists, sinking a needle into Pepper’s neck to a pained little gasp and pulling up the plunger to fill the syringe with dark blood.

“There,” he continues, looking down at Pepper. “Was that anything to be dramatic about?” 

“What do you want, you fucking psychopath?” Pepper hisses at him. 

“Geeze, you’d think this was your first time getting kidnapped for an involuntary medical procedure,” Peter quips. “Name-calling is really unnecessary.”

Pepper snaps her teeth at him angrily, and Peter sticks his tongue out at her.

He carefully pops a protective top over the syringe and then sticks it in his pocket, turning to Tony. His face lights with a lightning-quick flash of a grin before settling into something more serious. It’s like he has to remind himself that he’s the one responsible for this kidnapping. 

“It’s good to see you, sir,” he says, eyes roaming from Tony’s face, where he’s retracted the mask to maybe talk some sense into the kid, and down his armor-plated body. “Have I mentioned I really like this look on you? It is a good look.” 

Tony holds a hand up to Peter, palm open. It’s simultaneously a placating gesture and a threatening one, his repulsor glowing and whirring softly in the other man’s direction.

“Hadn’t really planned on wearing it today, kid” Tony says. “Care to tell me why you got me all gussied up? I assume you have a reason?”

“There’s always a reason, Mr. Stark,” Pete says, enigmatically. Then he looks back and forth between Tony and Pepper. “How is this thing going, by the way? Now that you’re retired. You two love birds nesting happily? Is he driving you crazy yet?” 

The last is shot back at Pepper, who doesn’t answer, but glowers forcefully in his direction. It’s a weird line of questioning. Sure, some of the more salacious gossip rags haven’t caught on yet, but Tony and Pepper haven’t been an item for years. It took very little time for antics that are fine in a friend to grow grating from a boyfriend.

“Yeah, we’re not dating, cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs,” Tony says. “It’s even worse than that. That’s my best friend you’ve got strapped to a table. You’re gonna let her go now, or I’m gonna get a little testy.”

Peter’s mouth twitches into a little grimace. 

“Not really a point in her favor,” he says. “No offense, but it seems like you’re really bad at choosing friends, Mr. Stark. This one gonna leave you for dead, too?”

_Ouch. _Tony’s gotta hand it to the kid, he knows how to hit the tender spots.

Peter turns back to Pepper, he strokes one glove-clad hand over her neck. A hand that Tony knows can stop a moving bus and bend metal. He grits his teeth and steps forward, only to stop when he sees Peter’s hand flex over her trachea as he gives a knowing shake to his head.

“She’s gonna be really fun to play with, though,” Peter is saying. “Pretty and enhanced. I’ve heard a lot about this Extremis stuff, and man does it sound useful. I mean, bioregeneration? That’s revolutionary.”

A cold chill trickles slow down Tony’s spine. Sure, he managed to essentially make Pepper’s body turn Extremis off, but the building blocks are still there in her blood stream, and Peter Parker is more than capable of putting them back together.

“Also comes with a side order of spontaneous combustion, in case you hadn’t heard,” Tony says.

“Oh, but I like things that go boom,” Peter says.

“Don’t spiders regrow limbs anyway? Seems redundant.”

“That’s lizards,” Peter says, with a roll of his eyes. “Obviously.” 

“Oh, obviously.”

“Will someone. Please. Untie me.” 

Pepper’s voice cuts through their back and forth with a grating edge.

“You heard the lady, underoos,” Tony says. “Let her go, give me the syringe, and we can be done with this.”

“Done?” Peter says. “Oh, no, we are definitely not done.”

He flashes Tony a sharp smile, pulls the syringe out of his pocket and deftly tosses it high up into the air.

“Catch?” he says.

They both grab for the syringe at the same time, Tony using his boot thrusters to get a little height, Peter shooting a web out to catch on one of the ceiling beams. He jumps up, resting one foot lightly on Tony’s armored shoulder for a second before swinging by and grabbing the syringe out of the air. He’s just _playing _with Tony now.

Well, Tony can play too. His mask comes down with a clunk.

“Come back here, you little shit,” he intones in a metallic-tinged voice. “Or I am going to make you regret it.

“Is that a promise, or are you just being a tease?” Peter shouts back, swinging in a wide arc from a metal girder. He’s headed toward the hole Tony made in the ceiling when he entered the building and no, uh-uh, that’s not happening. 

Tony rockets toward the kid, barreling into him like a freight train and knocking him in the gut with his metal-plated head for good measure. He hears all the breath leave Peter’s body in a soft “oomph.”

Meanwhile, Pepper’s convulsing on her table, trying desperately to shimmy her way out of her restraints.

“Seriously, Tony, get me out of here now!” she shouts. 

“No more nagging, sweetheart,” he calls back, testily. “I’m working on it.” 

He’s got Peter in a vice-like grip, but somehow he manages to wriggle his way out and climb onto Tony’s back as they fly. Then he’s got an arm around Tony’s neck in a chokehold that starts to cut off Tony’s airflow despite the metal armor protecting him.

“Say,” Peter quips, with a grunt of effort that belies his casualness. “Do you do the nickname thing out of affection, or is it just because you’re so old that you’ve started forgetting everyone’s name?” 

“It’s actually,” Tony huffs, straining for breath. “It’s actually because some people’s names aren’t worth remembering, spiderling.”

He manages to flip Peter off his back and over his head. Tony thinks he’s going to crash into the concrete floor, but at the last minute he gets a web out to catch himself.

“Ouch,” he says. “That’s hurtful.”

“Yes, you look just devastated,” Tony agrees, aiming a few repuslor blasts in quick succession at Peter’s quick-moving form. 

“I sense your sarcasm, Mr. Stark,” Peter calls, dodging the last blast. “But you should know, I actually am quite sensitive.” 

He hangs upside down for a second to look at Tony, raising his eyebrows suggestively, and making Tony snort even as he aims his next stunning blast. This one does catch the kid, at least, grazing his arm. 

“Ow,” he says, looking at Tony accusingly, as though they aren’t in the middle of a fight. “Some of us can’t afford to upgrade our equipment with every ding, you know. Try to show a little respect.”

He clasps a hand to his arm, where there’s now a charred hole in his sweatshirt.

“Yeah, don’t think what you’ve got there really counts as equipment there, underoos.”

It’s enough of a distraction for Tony to get off a stunning blast that fully connects this time, and he plucks Peter out of the air as his body seizes up, the ends of his hair smoking slightly. Tony’s relaxing into victory, bringing them down toward the ground when the little spider comes to in a flash, head connecting with Tony’s chin in a move that he isn’t sure is orchestrated or not. 

“Whoa,” Peter croaks. “Oddly invigorating, that.”

He meets Tony’s eyes with a mischievous grin spread across his face.

“Don’t you agree, Mr. Stark?”

“Stay down, kid …” Tony warns, gripping Peter’s arms with all of his mechanically-enhanced strength. 

“Not really my style.”

He presses one hand almost affectionately to Tony’s chest, just above the reactor, and brings his forehead conspiratorially close to Tony’s. Completely involuntarily, Tony’s heart stutters, and his breathing goes ragged. Peter’s eyes, this close, are a soft honeyed brown with little flecks of green.

“This isn’t gonna do any permanent damage, but it is probably gonna hurt like a sonovabitch,” he whispers.

Tony looks down to see a little flashing chip attached to the suit. A wave of recognition washes over him. Same kind of thing he used on the bear. 

Tony curses violently just as his thrusters lose all power and he plummets towards the ground while Peter shoots a web out and flips away. He’s on the lip of the ruined skylight before Tony even hits the ground, shooting him a little wave before disappearing over the edge.

*

It’s frankly terrifying, the idea of what Peter could do with Extremis. He’s already shown an affinity for blowing shit up. Tony really doesn’t want to see what it’s like if he graduates to people bombs. It’s another thing he has to put Friday’s scanners on high alert for, and another thing to berate himself over. But hey, the list is already long. One more item doesn’t make that much difference in the long run. 

If anything, Tony thinks of it as proof that he’s made the right call in retiring. He can’t keep up anymore. He’s underestimating his opponents. Sure, for a second there, in the middle of sparring against Spider-Man, he had felt his blood zing with the feeling of being back in the suit and back in action. But the end results speak for themselves.

_Stick to the science, _he reminds himself. It’s the only thing that’s going to see him through. It’s ironic that that’s exactly what he’s doing – making a rare trip out to the Avengers’ compound to consult with a SHIELD scientist named Fitzsimmons on prosthesis technology – when he next runs into the unstoppable force that is Peter Parker. 

Tony doesn’t even make it to the lab. He and Happy are still in the lobby talking over last night’s Knicks game when Parker barges in in his full get-up, holding a gun so big it takes two hands to wield. It’s all chrome, like something out of a sci-fi novel, and when he starts firing it into the crowd of SHIELD agents cycling through the lobby, it turns out it’s not a gun at all. It’s a freeze-ray. Because of course it is.

It makes a high-pitched whining sound as it charges up, and before long he’s got a crowd of screaming people whose feet are frozen to the floor in blocks of ice.

“Hey, Mr. Stark!” Peter calls, with a friendly wave over the heads of several dozen panicked agents.

Tony’s eyes go wide, and he feels his heartbeat tick up. Peter doesn’t use weapons. Not like this. Except, apparently he does.

“Go back to the car,” he yells at Happy, even as he’s turning and sprinting away. He’s calling the suit, but the closest one is in the next building over, in the Avengers’ quarters, not in the admin building. He’s gonna have to meet it part way.

Tony waves away Happy’s protest of “But Boss …” and completely ignores Peter’s call of “Aw, but I just got here.” He sprints. Pieces of the suit start to coalesce around his body when he’s halfway across the verdant green lawn that separates the two buildings. He can see the window the various components smashed through.

There’s no panic this time. His heart doesn’t stutter. Tony welcomes the secure clasp of the armor like an old friend.

Once he’s put his face plate into place, he engages the thrusters and heads back to find Peter. He’s several floors up in the building now, obviously working his way somewhere with a purpose.

Tony doesn’t bother with stairs or any of that, just smashes through another window to intercept Peter once Friday’s nailed down his location. Why not? They’ll bill him. They always do. 

What he sees, when he lands and faces Peter, is enough to send an alarming pain shooting through his chest. This can’t be right. 

As far as Tony can tell, Peter’s inclinations have always been towards mayhem and destruction rather than physical violence. Sure, he beat up that guy when Tony first met him, and he’s been known to leave Fisk’s lackeys worse for wear. But it’s never really been a part of his MO. More a bi-product of other things he’s trying to achieve. 

But now. Now, there are a smattering of bodies behind him – agents in pursuit, Tony guesses – completely encapsulated in ice. They are unmoving and unbreathing. Tony does the mental calculations. More than a few minutes with the cold and the lack of oxygen, and they’re basically dead. He’s looking at a line of corpses, all wrought by Peter Parker’s hand.

“Peter,” he calls out, voice cracking. “Easy now, kid. Drop the gun.”

He’s leveling one of his repulsors at Peter as the young man stops and then turns to look at Tony, the weapon loose in his grasp, tilting toward the floor.

“Gun?” Peter asks, innocent as anything. “Mr. Stark, don’t short-change me here. This is not a gun. This is a genuine, one-of-a-kind freeze-ray. It’s just like in that old movie. Batman and Robin.”

“The ice people kind of clued me in on that, underoos. Now put it down.”

The grin that spreads across Peter’s face is chilling.

“Make me,” he says.

They must fire at exactly the same time, the hot blaze from Tony’s repulsor clashing with the icy beam from Peter’s weapon in a purple flash that sends them both hurtling backward. Peter’s back slams against the stairwell door while Tony’s metal ass screeches down the hallway until he finally loses momentum, jarring all of his bones as it does.

From a distance, he hears Peter groan and then whisper “So cool,” to himself. Then he’s scrambling up, young bones not fazed for long by the impact, heading out the door he hit and up the stairs.

Tony’s entire body protests as he pulls himself to his feet. 

“Friday?” he asks. “Where’s he going?”

“Trajectory suggests the rooftop boss,” she replies succinctly.

“Then let’s beat him there.” 

He flies out through the hole he made entering the building, making it to the rooftop of the building just as Peter is stumbling through the door. He’s got a backpack slung over one shoulder that Tony didn’t notice before.

“What’s in the bag, kid?” he says, coming to a soft landing on the edge of the roof. “Did you bring homework?”

“I’m responsible like that,” Peter says, hitching the strap further up his shoulder. Protective. Hmm.

“Friday?” Tony asks.

“Mr. Parker stopped in the lab upon first entering the building,” she says. 

“A heist, is it?” Tony says. “Aren’t you supposed to be a little subtler than this?”

“Everyone’s got their own style,” Peter says. “You really are not easy to impress, sir. I mean, I thought you’d at least be fascinated by the science behind my new toy. I worked a long time on this.” 

“You’re about a decade too late to impress me with a fancy gun, Pete,” Tony says.

“Oh for the love of … It’s not a gun!”

And he seems genuinely distressed, for some reason, tugging with one hand at the wild ends of his hair.

“Why don’t you let me decide that?” Tony says, more gently. “Just let me take a look, yeah?”

The gentler approach seems to be more effective than tough love. Tony can see Peter softening just a little, his shoulders slumping down. Tony’s reaching out toward the weapon held loosely now in Peter’s hand when the door behind him slams open, and Happy busts through the door, huffing after the climb and levelling his gun at Peter.

“I’m here, boss,” he calls out. “I got him”

“Happy, no!” Tony yells. 

It unfolds before his eyes in slow motion, Peter raising his weapon and pulling the trigger, the ice spreading out from Happy’s chest in both directions. He just barely has time to clutch at his chest where the beam hit him before it overtakes him completely and he’s frozen in place.

There’s a buzzing in Tony’s brain that drowns out almost all other input. He can’t breathe. Vaguely, he hears Peter call out to someone. 

“Wade, I need extract,” he’s saying, into a communication device on his collar.

In a blip, someone in a red leather suit is there on the roof next to Peter, and in the next they’re both gone.

Slowly, the buzzing leaves Tony’s ears and he sucks in a shaky breath. Then he stumbles over to Happy and aims his repulsors at the ice encasing him, trying to melt it. 

It takes far too long. Long enough that Tony knows, he knows it’s a lost cause. But he beats back the panic and keeps at it. He has to do something. He has to try. When he’s able to finally lift a chunk of ice away from Happy’s face, he’s expecting eerie stillness. Instead, there’s a gasp, coughing.

“What?” Tony says, wonderingly.

“C-can you get me outta here?” Happy stutters. “I’m fucking freezing.”

Holding a sob painfully inside his throat, Tony wraps his arms around Happy’s neck, breathing in the scent of him – cheeseburgers, new car, cheap aftershave. It smells fantastic. 

“Boss?” Happy asks. “Are you sniffing me?”

So it turns out the kid was right. It is impressive science. Beneath the ice, his freeze-ray also distributes a layer of oxygen-rich gel, a sort of life-support system for the people who got trapped in the ice. The worst injuries are a few frostbitten toes.

After Fitz and Simmons defrost (turns out SHIELD’s best scientist is two people, not one) they look over the inventory in the lab and tell him that there are a few things missing, but they appear to be mostly older technology. An old Iron Man helmet, a prototype of Black Widow’s widow’s bite, a few other odds and ends.

“It’s like he’s just a collector,” Fitz tells Tony in his thick Scottish burr. “I can’t understand it. He could have ruined years of work if he wanted.”

While agents put things back into order after the attack, Tony heads back to the roof to think. Moments with Peter keep flashing through his mind. _Iron Man can’t retire, _the kid had said. _It’s a good look, _he’d commented when he’d got Tony back into the suit for the first time.

And really, watching the sun sink down over the long green lawns of the Avengers’ compound, Tony can only come to one conclusion. The kid is trying to pull Tony back into the action. Back into the suit, back into the game.

He thinks about the lack of any panic putting on the suit today, the rush of fighting the kid, Tony’s raw power pitted against his athletic grace. It wouldn’t be energizing if there weren’t something deeply wrong with Tony. If he were a better person. Healthier. Nobler.

But much as he tries, he can’t ignore the voice in his head that tells him that Peter is trying to bring him back to life and maybe, for all of Tony’s sins, it’s working.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I also may have internalized Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog to an unhealthy degree. Freeze-Ray!

**Author's Note:**

> I have watched that Civil War scene, and then the Homecoming scene, waaaay too many times. And this is what my brain decided to do with them.


End file.
